The Law of Cycles

BY Renee Guenette

Breathing is something natural, and of course could not be deemed a characteristic particular to children, right? The fact is that most adults have forgotten how to breathe correctly. Yet, the flow of breath is life itself. The Universal Law of Rhythm or Cycles states that everything works in cycles, and that is how life constantly renews itself. For every high there is a low. If you think about it, the whole world breathes. The incoming tides and outgoing tides are the breath of Mother Earth, following a natural rhythmic flow that is constant. If we observe babies, babies breathe rhythmically taking reposeful respirations. They do not take shallow breaths or suck in the air, they breathe deeply from the belly, using their diaphragm. As they breathe in, they effortlessly first expand the area below the navel, then the one above the navel or diaphragm, followed by the chest area. As they breathe out they effortlessly deflate these same areas just in the reverse order. It is a natural slow process. Correct breathing produces well oxygenated blood and good circulation therefore proper functioning of the cells to excrete toxins such as carbon dioxide. It is critical to vital health and yet most of you are not doing it right. You are holding everything in, under breathing or over breathing, breathing non-rhythmically and in a shallow way, inefficiently using your lung capacity, or breathing only with the top portion of your chest area. You forgot how to breathe when, as young children, you began to do too many strenuous activities of the body and of the mind. A lot of people now have to retrain their bodies to breathe naturally.

In the animal world, except for humans, the longest living mammals are the biggest animals, the ones with the slowest heart beats and the ones that breathe the most slowly. The whales and the elephants are the mammals that have the longest life expectancy. When the metabolism is slow, less energy is spent on repairing tissues, having the kidneys, lungs, stomach, liver, pancreas, gall bladder, etc. do their job efficiently. I compare this to vehicles. If you drive a sports car, the amount of gas (energy) burned will be very high if the car is driven at the high speeds it is meant to be driven. Due to the constant excessive speed, the maintenance on this car will also be very high as in the wear and tear on the tires, the repairs due to collisions, the breakdown in the braking system, in effect, any of its parts will wear away rapidly because of the extreme demands exerted on them. In contrast, a vehicle that is driven slowly but on a regular basis, will use up less gas (energy) to travel the same distance as the sports car. It will need regular maintenance but by no means will it come anywhere close to what the sports car requires. The human being breathing incorrectly is like the sports car, on the road to a quick trip to the scrap yard.

If you want to breathe correctly again, it might mean that you will have to take some yoga classes or find books or teachers that will give you a series of exercises to practice your breathing. A lot of people today are very stressed and this stress is reflected in their breathing. When stressed, people might breathe up to 100 breaths in a minute as demonstrated in the case of anxiety or asthmatic attacks. In such situations, the body begins to shut down and over a repeated period of time, the body does finally completely shut down. When you experience emotions that in the past caused you to stop breathing, made you breathe in a shallow way, or hyperventilate, you breathe the same way whenever these same emotions are brought up again in the present.

It is the breath that guides the emotional body. When you are afraid, you may notice that you breathe in a shallow fashion, as in before an interview for a new job, during a meeting where things are not going your way, when you are late for an appointment, or when you have to give a speech in front of your peers. When you become aware of your breath and learn how to breathe correctly again, you will be able to consciously slow it down and find calm and peace within. One practice that you can begin to take now is at anytime during the day, stop what you are doing, and take one or two minutes to focus on your breathing, taking a few minutes just to breathe correctly. As you take in a breath, feel your belly rise, then your abdomen, and last of all your chest area. As you let out your breath, feel your chest deflate, then your abdomen, and last of all your belly. At first, this will not seem normal for you because it is not the way you have been breathing for many years now, but with practice, it will become your natural, rhythmic way of breathing once again, just like when you were a child.

The Law of Rhythm states that for every high there is a low and this is why you have to learn to control your emotions and your mental state so that you can manage your life in the extreme rhythms. You have the choice to let your emotions run your life and bounce from extreme highs and extreme lows, or choose to control the reactions to your emotions thereby living a balanced emotional life. Do not let external factors dictate the way you live your life but rather make conscious moment to moment choices to live the life that you want to live.

Try imagining what the world would be like if the tides did not occur rhythmically. People would never be sure where to sail because they would never know for certain the depth of the water covering the sandbars or reefs at any particular time, nor would they ever be sure as to where to moor their boats. A chaotic tidal system would create dangers for swimmers, boaters, and marine life, not unlike chaotic breathing which creates danger for your own life. Take the time to become conscious of your breathing again, correct it and observe how you begin to regulate your emotions with your breath. Fear will totally dissipate as you slow down your rate of breathing and breathe rhythmically once more. The flow of breath is life. When you cut it off, your life extinguishes. Do not forget to breathe.